The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-04-10
.ere conceived would imply the cessation

seeing ODduiSu tiehSuIc-Sulp, s4C tEu4y
imaginative perceive at once that in
such circumstances treasures and ships
would be of absolutely no interest
whatever.
Take on much smaller scale, as a
common instance of
WANT OF IMAGINATION.
the difficulty which people have in con-
ceiving that any one can like anything
in any other way than the way they
themselves. like it. You have, let US
say, preference for rice or sage pad,
ding made without sugar Of any form
of havoring Ii so, you will probably
never find it possible to induce a cook
or IaDdiaGy to make it so for you until
at least the tenth trial, The first time,
the unimaginative soul will put in q
little suear-it would be so very nasty,
YOU know, without any sweeteEing.
You protest against this and send away
the pudding untasted. Next time, the
excellent and well-meaning experiment
ter tries the effect OF q pinch Of nutmeg
Ii the man docs not like sugar, IN.
thinks to herself, he must have some
sort of favouring to make the THU
pa atable. You protest once more thai
you dislike nutmeg, and that 20 prefer
the sage in its native slmpilcl y The
cook tries her hand again, and this
time lets you off with only tritie o,
vanilla or cinnamon. She will exhaust
all the known condiments of British
cookery before she will accept this
Pure want of Imagination. sue cannot
conceive that anybody else can like a
thing when she does not like it. 1t
REQUIRES a certain amount of imagina-
tive power to realise the fact that
oiiye-oil, though distasteful to oneself,
is very pleasing TO most Italians; that
cayiare is not objectionable TO Russian
caviare-eaters; and that high wairus
fat is the height of good living to the
unsophisticated soul of the innocent
Esauimaux We have known people
of good sound digestion who could only
regard the liking of others for clear
SOUP a. pure affectauon; and even so
profoud genius as Thackerary roundiy
declared, IF any man says he likes dry
champagne, he lies" The great novelist
preferred his own champagne sweet,
and could not understand that any
body else conld really differ from him.
One common result of this imagina-
| tive inability to throw oneself into the
| attitude of others is shown in the kind
| of criticism of imaginative works that
consists of denying their possibility.
There never was such wicked man as
| Iago," Nobody could ever have acted
so nobly as Talfourd's Ion," mean
merely, Il can't imagine other people
so very different from my own nature. =
Almost every. novelist has often smiled
to himself because critics have told him
thst such and such an act, culled per
haps from his own personal history,
was too wicked or too good for any
| human being ever to have committed.
Most peoples range of imagination IN
this respect is extre mely Unite J..
| Especially do they consider that all the
good people in the world are uniformly
good, and all the bad people uniformly
villains. They ne er can believe that
anybody possessing certain number
of good feelings in common with them
selves should also possess certain
humber of wicked feelings of which
| they are destitute. The real truth is,
character is endlessly various; and
nobody can ever possibly exhaust all
| its conceivable combinations and
1diosyncrasies.
Il will thus be seen that imagination,
instead of being one of the lowest facul-
ties, is, in fact, one of the very highest.
The more instructed we are, the more
wide-minded, the more all-sided, the
greater will be the range OF our magma :
ton.
EVERY SCIENCE AND EVERY ART
that we know will help sto supply us
with imaginative material-materiai for
our intelligence TO have free play upon.
The particular use we make of the
material will of course depend upon the
direction our faculties have naturally
taken or have had imposed upon them
by external circumsta aces. But the
faculty itself is ST bottom identical
The rom ANGER building up q consistent
story of men and women from the facts
and characters he has observed in real
life, ana the inventor recOmbining the
energies Of nature or the wheels and
cranks with which his ken is familiar
into new forms for practical purposes,
are both alike working up afresh in
various ways the material Of experience
into novel combinations. It is TO
imagination therefore that we owe the
great triumrhs of science quite as truly
as the great efforts of art. A Newton
who sees IN the falling apple an analogue
of the cycling moon and the rising tide
Is asst as luuCQ IHhrgc:OuS ltudSiild-
tive genius as Shakspere who gives US
Lady Macbeth. ora Goethe who creates
for Us Faust and Wilhelm Meister. The
deliberate cultivation and DEVELOPMENT
of imagination ought to form no
less part of education than the culture
and development of inferior faculties,
such as memory or the mathematical
powers. Want of imagination leads
continually to all sorts of danger, blum
ders, and, difficulties. The unimaginative
mau is emphatically the man who can
not see beyond his own nose. All
great business interchangeable
Pacific Railway. the Atlantic Gable, the
Suez Canal-imply imaginative facul-
ties of high order; and-to take
much smaller business affairs-look at
the amount of imagination that is
involved in the work, say, of Liver
pool cotton-broker, of a London banker.
OF an Reporter of piece-goods to China
or India. 1t is largely the possession of
Imagination that enables the great sue
cessful workers TO rise to the top; with
ont it, they would go on q their lives
as mere well-meaning pieiders, and
could never attain the higher ranges
which are open only to men Of original
and graphic thought.
Unimaginative people indeed are
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